


Whisper

by Mierke



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-22
Updated: 2010-05-22
Packaged: 2018-03-04 18:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3083120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mierke/pseuds/Mierke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Willow grieves.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whisper

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://tamingthemuse.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://tamingthemuse.livejournal.com/)**tamingthemuse** , _Blood, sweat and hysterics_. 
> 
> Set after season six (no resemblance to season seven).

Trees all around her.

Screams, piercing through the air.

Her feet are thumping on grass, their silence echoing through her ears.

When she looks down, she notices she isn’t touching the ground.

The screaming gets louder, and she goes off again.

A voice starts dripping in, a voice she recognizes and doesn’t recognize at all.

It brings venom with it, rage, a taste for vengeance.

Faster she goes, faster, faster…

She has to save him.

She has to save her.

But the moment she reaches them, the other her sets him on fire.

_One down._

Fire rages through him, envelopes him in light.

Just before he’s gone, he changes.

In the fire stands the woman she knows and loves with all her heart.

It takes her just a second to recognize her lover, and then the woman is gone.

Burned up.

She’s too late.

Always too late.

 

Willow doesn’t awake with a gasp, or upright in bed. She never does. She slowly comes out of her nightmare, believing for one glorious second that a nightmare is all it was. It never lasts long. When the reality crashes into her, she cries.

She has no idea of time anymore. It feels like she has been waking up this way for forever. She still feels next to her when she wakes, looking for Tara’s comforting presence. When she doesn’t find her, she starts whispering.

“I killed Tara.  
I killed Tara.  
I killed Tara…”

This is how Giles finds her every morning. He gently dries her tears. He carries her out of bed, into the shower. He cleans the wounds she has made with her fingernails. He brushes her hair. He tries to feed her, but she won’t eat much. He forces her to drink; gives her herbal tea and water with vitamins.

He talks to her. He tells her about the weather, about the place they’re in, about the dreams he has dreamed. Sometimes he thinks she’s listening, but most of the time he’s not even sure she recognizes that what he’s doing is talking.

When things get really bad he sings to her. She seems to notice that, more than before. He thinks she’s making progress, but when he thinks that he chides himself for being so optimistic and tells himself that it is just wishful thinking.

The coven say that they are trying to help, but he knows they’re too scared to even want Willow back. Even Buffy and Xander are too scared to come close to her, too scared to help him care for her. He finds himself wishing Tara were here; not because she’s the reason Willow is gone, but because she would know what to do (not because it’s Willow, but because Tara knows these things).

Willow never talks back. It’s been months since he has last heard her say something real, something else than her ever-returning morning whisper. He doesn’t know what’s left for him to do. He has tried every option he has, every person he knows, magical and non-magical. There seems to be no one who can reach her.

So Giles cares for her. He dries her tears and cleans her blood. Once a week he changes her sheets before he carries her back into her bed. He tries to feed her pancakes, even tries to make them into strange shapes (not really succeeding), hoping the memory will trigger a reaction. He forces her to drink coffee. He lays her to rest, watching over her while she sleeps. Vowing never to stop until he has found a way to end her suffering.


End file.
